Um, I did have one bus experience, one time, when I went on a -- I went on a field trip, and we had a bus driver and we were somewhere in the Detroit area and he -- buses are big. They're just -- I, I can't imagine what it would be like to drive a bus. I don't even like driving a large vehicle. But we were downtown, somewhere in Detroit -- pretty tight streets, and he hit a car, and we just kept going. And it wa- -- it was v- -- the weirdest thing. Like -- cuz he just -- you hit s- -- you hit a car! Like, you just -- It was a parked car, so no one knew, and he just kept going! I'm -- I don't know. We really didn't quite know what to do at that point. I was not in charge, so I didn't do anything. Maybe I should’ve contacted the bus garage and let them know -- I’m not sure. But I didn’t. Maybe, maybe if I -- it were to happen again, I would.

The friend who helped me get my current position also helped me get work at the studio, and she's like, “You quit working at the studio, right?” A- -- this is my frenemy. And so I told her, “Yeah.” And nope. I didn't. And not that she has to know, because she doesn't, but I don't even wanna hang out with her like that anymore. Like, it's good to hang out with her, but only in moderation, and it has to be -- things have to be so light because she's the type of person that I can see using and holding stuff against me. Like, on Tuesday -- er, not Tuesday. I mean, yes. My car got towed on Tuesday, by the way, from work. No reason why. When I went to the towing place, they're like, "Illegal parking? Where did you park?" And I was like, "Where I usually -- where I always park at work. There's no sign saying otherwise” And they're -- you know, like, there's all these -- you know, it says “Parking Available.” It never says anything about paid parking. It says free parking from these hours, and I was parked there within hours! You know, my friends a- -- my co-workers told me, “Oh, hey. It might be because of -- they were doing some construction.” And then they went outside, and they're like, “There's no signs there.” And I was like, “Yeah. Exactly.” Like, what do you mean? Anyways, I paid 340 dollars. Not a big deal. But, you know,] I was in the car crash and I couldn't even tell my frenemy that, because I -- she already thinks I'm a bad driver, and I already know how she would react if I told her I was in a car accident. She would be like, “Well, if only you weren't such a bad driver.” Like, she would not show an ou- -- like she would play along and pretend that she share- -- like, cared a lot about me, but she doesn't. She would hold it against me. She'd be like, "Wow. You were in a car accident." So instead, I just told her that my cousin got into a car accident, and I was in the car, and she -- she's one of those people where she was fishing for that information. Like, she straight up was like, "Oh, but…

Tell us about a time you found a shortcut. Oh, wait, this is a really funny story. It's not about finding a shortcut. It's about lying to my little brother about finding a shortcut. ‘Cause my little brother, he was taking a -- just -- I think during that summer we were taking walks together and just stuff like that, right? Hanging out. And then I wanted to explore this new part of the -- this part of the neighborhood I never went to before and then my brother, obviously, like didn't really feel like doing that. So I told him it was a shortcut. And then we went in, I'm like I wasn't exactly lying because I didn't know if it was gonna be a shortcut or not. I just like, it could be a shortcut. But I told him it was a shortcut. So we went in, we explored a bit, and then we looped all the way back and he's like, “That's not a shortcut.” Like, “I know it's not a shortcut.”  But yeah, now after that every time I take my brother anywhere and I say there's a shortcut he looks at me and like -- he looks at me like, with like, what's it called? A questioning face. He doesn't trust me anymore in that regard. I mean that's fine. Don't trust me with that because I really, I really do like the exploring part so. Sometimes I -- I usually take more detours than shortcuts if anything.

A highway can technically still be used for a freeway or interstate, because it essentially is a roadway that takes you from point A to point B. By the same token, a gravel road can be a highway because that's what we used to have, or in some cases, still have as your main way of getting from place to place. Meanwhile, the freeway is exclusively for cars and trucks and maybe a passenger bus or two because of the way it's designed. One, for high speed; two, limited access. It's not meant for you to take your bicycle on it or skate or walk, or go on a horse drawn carriage.

My sister is really terrified of potholes. Anywhere. And as was mentioned in one of the questions, there are a lot of potholes in Michigan because of the water that freezes on the roads and then causes the cement or concrete or whatever it is to crack. But, when she lived in Ghana, she used to travel on roads that were a lot worse than these roads. And the cars used to just be swallowed up by these potholes. Like the roads were just so terrible. And the drivers would just drive over them or try to drive over them, and she got stuck a couple of times and had just some bad experiences with these potholes.  And so every time she sees a pothole she tends to tense up a little bit and gets nervous because she's afraid of hitting it or getting stuck in it or something. I don't know. It's -- I mean it's not a fear that causes her to not be able to drive or to have any sort of panic attack or anything, but she definitely -- you could like visibly see her tense when there's lots of potholes or with -- if there's a big pothole or something or if she thinks that somebody's gonna hit it, she will have a death grip on the the door handle or the seat or something. Which I guess, you know if you've had a bad experience with something it can cause you to have that sort of reaction to something.

Well, one of the stories that I had pretty much forgotten about was when my youngest sister was born. We had had a new house built over the summer. She was born in the fall. And so, when she was born, the doctor requested that she stay in the hospital -- my mom stay in the hospital a couple of extra days, so that we could get moved into the new house. First off, can you even imagine that being requested today? You know, they don't, they don't keep new mothers in the house -- or, in the hospital at all, let alone a couple of extra days, just because we asked for it.  So, yes, my mama and my youngest sister stayed in the hospital a couple of extra days. Several relatives and a couple of neighbors came over and helped us move in. And -- in fact, the guys, the painter, the painters were still downstairs painting when we move -- when we were moving in and one of my aunts heard, one of the painters say to the other one, "They're moving in upstairs," and sure enough we were, so it's like "You guys better hurry up and get done painting." Okay, so my dad, me, my siblings, we were in the new house that first night, and we had a fireplace.Well, we never had a fireplace before and we had all these scraps of wood around, you know, from building the house. And so we all thought it would be a good idea to gather up some of these scraps and start a fire, see how this works. Okay, so we did. One of the problems was that they weren't just, you know, scraps of two by four, they were also scraps of plywood and so on. So they had other stuff in them other than just wood, they had chemicals and glues and stuff. So, anyway, we gathered them up, we stacked -- stacked a stack in the fireplace and lit it on fire. All of a sudden, smoke starts rolling out of the fireplace. And my dad rushed in and he's like, “You gotta open the flue.” Well, we didn't know anything about a flue, we'd never had a fireplace before. So my dad reached in and opened the flue and then it was all good, but the house was already full of this…

So when I was in, it was, probably would have been when I was in junior high which is what we kinda used to call middle school. I was, I was still in Girl Scouts and we would take these cool camping trips. And like even like in the winter, it was amazing, we would -- we were so tough. I look back and I just marvel that we did this. But anyway, on one of these trips, my friend, who was, I have to tell you, not in the least bit wild or naughty. I mean, she was a super nice girl, you know got good grades and listened in school, came to all that, not a rabble-rouser or trouble maker. She pulled out from her luggage that she had brought some wine from home, like just a bottle of wine. Which was like, so shocking, because not only was [name] one of those good girls but I mean, we all were. I mean, we were a bunch of nerds that were still in Girl Scouts long after everyone like dropped out and you know, started doing other stuff. Anyway, [name] brought this wine, so thrilling and I had maybe one sip. And somebody else had one or two sips, [name] might have had some and that was the end of it. I think just the thought of it was so naughty that that was like enough and I think we were too scared to do more, get buzzed, get drunk, any of that. I don't actually really don't know how much the other ones drank, but I do know that I drank only the tiniest bit. And then otherwise the camping trip was just normal. A couple of -- sometime later, maybe a couple weeks later, I got a notification that there was gonna be a meeting. It was at -- this is what was the scariest thing about it was it was gonna be at the at the college, where my dad taught, but you know, it was evening and it was, you know, in some room and I, I can't remember if at that time I had a feeling like we were in trouble or if it just was mysterious to me. But when I got there, Our Girl Scout leaders were there, [name] was there, and the other girl who had taken a drink from the bottle was there. And I can't remember…

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. So anyways, the orthodontist called while I was driving my son to camp in the morning. And I was driving down the road to, to camp and it was on a 25 mile an hour road that has a left turn lane in the middle. But it otherwise it's just you can just go in one lane, you know. There's three lanes, let's say and then the middle one, is the left turn lane, and it's 25 miles an hour, all right? So, the orthodontist calls and talking to her about my son's braces. And there's somebody like tailgating me right behind, like, right on my butt tailgating me. And I'm going 30, max. I'm going between 25 and 30 because I don't like to speed especially on this road. There's like schools all over the road and a daycare and there's people walking, I don't speed on that road. So, I was going 30 miles an hour, max. And as this person is tailgating me, I'm getting more and more agitated while I'm talking on the phone and -- to the orthodontist. And then all of a sudden, the person behind me decide, they're gonna pass me in the left turn lane, And they, they zoom around me and they’re trying to zoom around me in the left, turn lane, totally illegal. They're not turning, they're just trying to pass me.  And as they do this, something snapped in my brain and I slammed on my accelerator to drag race them and I scream at the top of my lungs, “F*** you, you stupid b****!” And I'm on the phone talking to the like orthodontist well, the lady behind -- the receptionist and, and then I and then I realized I'm like, “Oh.” And then I snap back into reality and I like within a second and in my mind I'm thinking, “I'm drag racing down the middle of 25 mile an hour road, I just screamed into the phone, “F*** you, you stupid b****.” At the receptionist at the orthodontist while we're in the middle of a conversation” And I'm like, “Oh no, what did I just do?” And so I said, “Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And the lady’s like, “Oh my God, what?” And I said, “I…

We left Detroit and we did not have a direct flight, we had to go to Chicago and we had a direct flight from Chicago to Marseille. And it was a very long flight. We were with another couple and the woman in this other couple gets cars -- or air sick. And so she has to take these very strong air sick pills. And she was out most of the time we were on this flight. And of course, when we got there, we had left in the middle of the day here but when we got there, of course, it was very early in the morning. And we were going on a river boat cruise down the Seine and, and there's another River we were going on too, but we had to go to Marseille first. And anyway, and Marseille was lovely by the way. But, she was not awake when we got off the plane very well, and she said to me, “I need to go to the bathroom.” and I put my arm around her kind of almost and led her to the bathroom. And I said to her husband, I said, “You have to take all the luggage ‘cuz I'm going to take your wife to the bathroom.” Which he you know, “Yeah please.” So we did, but she didn't come out of the stall and she didn't come out of the stall. And I'm thinking I wonder if she fell back to sleep. And she had, she had actually fallen asleep sitting on the toilet in the Marseille Airport. And, of course, I couldn’t get in there because the door was locked. I had to stand outside, and pound on the door. People stared at me and stared at me and airport bathroom doors, do not have a space at the bottom, you can't like, crawl underneath or do anything like that plus, I couldn't have done that anyway but oh, what a mess that was finally got her to wake up. She finally all of a sudden woke up and realized where she was and we get out there and her husband says, “What took you so long?” I said, “[friend] fell asleep on the toilet.” and he just looked at me and he went, “I’m not gonna ask any more.” And I said, “Please don’t.”

When I was working and we had an assistant principal, who was pretty arrogant. And, you know, he would make jokes with people and but he was, it’s kind of hard to explain, but he brought me my ID one day and they had printed ‘Simpson’ instead of [last name] on my, on my ID and he hands it to me. And I'm like, “That's not my name.” And he thought that -- he already knew it wasn't and he thought that was funny. And he, he said, started calling me Marge. And I said, “Yeah, I've heard that before from every other -- you and every other sixth grader.” It just came out of my mouth without thinking how that was probably not a good thing to say to one of your supervisors. But, someone in administration.  But I think that he -- I know I didn't scare him but I think he knew he couldn’t mess with me as much and intimidate me as much as he thought he was going to Because he loved to intimidate people. And I think that I bought a little cred at that moment from him.